Kid Amnesiac

A few years ago, I spent some time pondering what I called the what-if scenario. Back then, the what-if scenario was my imagined life had I stayed in San Francisco and had Simon there. The what-if-scenario is back, only now it goes like this: What if Simon had a younger brother or sister?

By now, it’s clear that he’s my one and only. Simon is almost 5, I’m over 41, and it seems to me that the window on a second child closed a year or two ago. I idly pondered the notion, Matt has been quite happy with the status quo, and now we’ve all settled into our triad family. Most qualms I had about the decision were quieted by reading more about only children. Turns out, the little emperors* do just fine.

Still, every now and again I think about how being an only can be a burden to Simon. He’s the sole focus of our parenting focus, he won’t have a comrade in arms when he enters teenage rebellion, and he will have the sole burden of taking care of his parents when Matt and I get old. So while we’re a happy family now, I don’t kid myself that there aren’t any draw-backs to the arrangement.

It’s not ambivalence or regret fueling my current speculation as much as it is having the chance to preview an alternative reality. With Agotich at our house three mornings a week and with Simon visiting her apartment another two to three, I have more time than ever to see Simon in a multi-child setting. Last week, on a day I needed to drop off Agotich at school first, I had Simon help me take her to her class. I lined the kids up in the parking lot, asked Simon to carry Agotich’s back-pack for her, and marched us into the building in a hand-holding line.

To the untrained eye, we were a normal family unit heading into preschool. (I heard more than one smiling parent say something about Simon being a good big brother.) For their parts, Agotich put up much less resistance to holding Simon’s hand in the parking lot than she does with mine, and Simon beamed with pride at the responsibility of keeping Agotich safe and headed in the right direction.

Then there’s Anyieth. Or “Yethie” or “Bethie” as Simon likes to say. He adores her. When we hit Alek’s apartment, he heads straight for the nursery if Anyieth isn’t in the living room. He’s content to watch her sleep, happy to bounce her seat or tickle her belly, thrilled when she smiles or laughs for him, and dedicated to showering her with kisses. Last week he held her for the first time and then talked about it for days.

At first, I thought he was saying and/or doing this to get praise from me. Simon knows that he gets lots of compliments when he’s sweet and caring. But I think I underestimated Yethie’s appeal. When he looks at her, he has the same look on his face that I do when I look at him. It’s that combination of intense focus and softness that are the hallmarks of familial love.

At this point, I think Agotich and Anyieth are family to Simon. It’s not the same, of course. They don’t spend enough time together to squabble (much), and Simon doesn’t have to compete for resources, but he sure likes being “a big brother” to them and feeling part of a unit. The secret to getting rid of any toy in our house is to tell him that it’s for Agotich. He’s also been insistent that they come to his family birthday party this year. And then there’s the biggie. Early this week he asked me if we could have a baby sister like Yethie, too.

The answer I gave him, which satisfied him, is the same one I used when I settled on having an only child myself:

“No, honey, I’m afraid you aren’t going to have a baby sister or brother. Mommy and Daddy think that the three of us make a great family. But you can always have other children in your life, and you can love them like you would family. You never know what might happen.”

*”Little Emperor” is a term used to describe the generation of only children in China as a result of their one-child policy. These kids, especially the boys, benefit from their parents’ attention and growing wealth, but often feel the strain of  being expected to perform to extremely high and rigid expectations.

We’ve hit a new milestone in Casa Whitworth, one I didn’t think much about until it arrived. Simon has started to desire privacy. I learned this two weeks ago when he got agitated about changing out of his pajamas with Agotich in the room. At first, I thought he was just stalling for time. Then I realized that he seemed more embarrassed than defiant.

“Do you want to go upstairs to change?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” he answered with no small amount of relief in is voice.

So began a new era. In the past two weeks Simon has been similarly insistent that he not change clothes or go to the bathroom if Agotich is in viewing distance. And it has nothing to do with his regard for Agotich, I am sure, as his love for her and her baby sister seems stronger than ever right now.

It will be interesting to see when he extends this desire for privacy to me and Matt. We can only hope that his emotional growth will wait for his fine motor skills to catch up because frankly, he’s not ready to handle all naked activities on his own yet!

We know this, of course, but an occasional reminder is still helpful. Mine came about two weeks ago, during the first of week of school.

It was after Agotich’s first day of school, and Simon was excited to go inside her apartment and play for a while after we drove her home. There isn’t much to do at Alek’s apartment; they don’t have much space or many toys. But cartoons are always playing, Agotich lives there, and it’s a change of scenery, all of which is enough to keep Simon coming back.

When we opened the door, we were greeted by Alek, which we expected, and also a young boy named Kuering, which we did not expect. Kuering’s mother was out interviewing for a job, and Alek was watching him and his (sleeping) baby sister. Like many children of the Lost Boys, Kuering has been here for not quite two years, time he has spent mostly at home with his mother. Other than weekly ventures to church or the occasional party, he hasn’t socialized much with other children and certainly hasn’t done so with children who are not Dinka.

Because of his rather insular life in America to date, a life that probably changed somewhat when his mother began driving and will dramatically change once she goes to work and he begins day-care, he was confused to see Simon trot into Agotich’s apartment. And because he just turned four, he did not express his confusion terribly politely:

“What’s he doing here?” He asked Alek with a frown.

Now Alek, whose manners were quite good when she arrived a year ago and who has only grown more open and warm with time, was embarrassed and horrified.

“Kuering!”, she barked in a tone any mother recognizes as a combination of embarrassment, surprise, and anger, “This house is Simon’s house, too. Don’t talk like that.”

Kuering was not overly happy to get this news; he frowned and pouted in response. Things got better when Simon went to play with him, and then got worse when I had to discipline him several times for playing too wildly near the baby and/or playing too roughly when Simon asked him not to. He jumped on the couch. I barked. He lept off an inside slide before the child in front had cleared out of the way. I barked some more. He pulled Simon’s hair (because he was fascinated by it, not out of malice). I corrected him again. Even when his mother arrived, I was the primary enforcer. Yar and Alek had things to discuss and were distracted, leaving me as the mom/enforcer on duty.

We left about an hour later, and I was sure that Kuering would be delighted to see my back. I said goodbye to his mother, said goodbye to him and told him it was nice to meet him, then kissed Anyieth and Agotich, telling the latter that I was happy she had a good day at school and that I was proud of her.

Much to my surprise, Kuering looked up at me with his dark almond eyes and asked rather plaintively,

“Don’t I get a kiss, too?”

And then it hit me. He might not have loved all the discipline I meted out, but he probably did like the attention. Dinka mothers don’t hover the same way Western ones tend to, and with a new baby in the house, Kuering might not have minded my vigilance as much as he pretended. Even if he did, none of that was enough to cancel out an innocent wish for some praise and affection.

What child doesn’t want that? For that matter, what person doesn’t want that?  So I checked my surprise as much as possible, told him “of course, all good boys and girls get kisses” and pecked him on his forehead. And the whole way home, I reminded myself that underneath—Dinka or American, well socialized or not—we are all the same. All of us.

Some time ago, it came to my attention that the fine folks who do market research for places like Kohls and Pottery Barn have zeroed in on demographically specific tastes a bit too accurately for my liking. At that time, I was on the hunt for cute Star Wars pajamas that cost less than $45-$50. As I ended up shelling out exactly that much money at Pottery Barn kids to avoid the garish items at Target and Kohls, the search was an abject failure.

Amusingly, I now find myself on the flip side of that equation, as it appears that Simon’s current passion, baseball, is hopelessly out of fashion in certain circles. Not attending baseball, mind you. Almost everyone I know caught at least one Bats (or Giants, or As, or Red Sox, or Indians, or you get the picture) game this summer. Almost everyone enjoys packing the kids up on a warm summer night and munching on nachos and beer while the kids play. And I honestly don’t know if t-ball or youth baseball enrollment is down.

Hunting the elusive baseball tee

What I do know for sure is that as a sartorial icon, baseball has fallen on hard times. It is easier to find tees dedicated to skateboarding, soccer, and biking than it is to find ones dedicated to baseball. At some stores—and I’m looking at you Tea Collection and Janie and Jack—it is easier to find tees dedicated to Mexican wrestling or rowing than it is to find a shirt dedicated to baseball. Being in the taste if not income bracket for these stores, I can understand the hipster ironic appeal of the luchador’s mask or the aspirational quality of the oar. I’m only tempted by the former, but I understand the attraction of both.

Lucha Libre? Si, si, si!

But Simon has not donned a mask or rowed in a coxed four. What he has done, and continues to do every day and twice a day if he can manage it, is go out in the backyard and hit balls with his Daddy. Matt now pitches overhand to him, Simon is whacking them further than ever, and he’s got a new lucky bat, juiced balls, and Cincinnati Reds cap to add to the fun. I don’t know what we’re going to do when winter hits, but I thought at the very least I should incorporate Simon’s love of baseball into his fall wardrobe. I also thought this would be easy to do at any of my favorite haunts given the current trend in graphic tees.

My education began at Gymboree and Boden and continued at Janie and Jack and Tea Collection until I figured out what was going on. In the end, my shopping research would teach me that the higher a store’s average price tag, the less likely I was to find a baseball tee in it. I will cynically offer that I also believe that the higher price tags were inversely proportionate to the likelihood of the child having direct experience with the featured sport, unless you know more preschool rowers, luchadores, or boxers than I do.

No, to find what I was looking for, I had to think a little less fancy and a lot more Midwestern. Gap Kids had a single baseball tee. Land’s End also had a single, token tee. Where I hit my bonanza was at Kohls, the very store whose ugly Star Wars pajamas last year sent me straight into the welcoming if costly arms of Pottery Barn Kids.

Of course, I’m not an innocent in this game. Simon’s other favorite sport to watch, Nascar, is a subject I do not openly discuss, and there will be no hunt for a Nascar tee in my future. Nor will there be, if I can help it anyway, light-up shoes or camouflage anything.

In fact, given all my rules about shopping for Simon (no sports stuff unless he plays it or watches it, no camouflage, no hideous sneakers, no colors that are bad for him) and his own size restrictions (needs a slim size for pants, does best with shirts with plackets as they accommodate his giant head and skinny neck, has a narrow foot that requires lace-up shoes), shopping for him this fall is going to take more time and money than shopping for me and two to three times as much as shopping for Matt.

Realistically, I might be walking back several of those nevers just to keep the kid in clothes. See, I can’t help but notice that Zara Kids, whose online store opens September 7, has some very cute racing tees. Sure, they’re thinking formula racing, but it’s still a car racing around a track and still something I have zero interest in. If it’s European car racing, that’s OK, right?